5 search hits

Linearized flows past slender bodies can be asymptotically described by a linear Fredholm integral equation. A collocation method to solve this equation is presented. In cases where the spectral representation of the integral operator is explicitly known, the collocation method recovers the spectrum of the continuous operator. The approximation error is estimated for two discretizations of the integral operator and the convergence is proved. The collocation scheme is validated in several test cases and extended to situations where the spectrum is not explicit.

Porous media flow of polymers with Carreau law viscosities and their application to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is considered. Applying the homogenization method leads to a nonlinear two-scale problem. In case of a small difference between the Carreau and the Newtonian case an asymptotic expansion based on the small deviation of the viscosity from the Newtonian case is introduced. For uni-directional pressure gradients, which is a reasonable assumption in applications like EOR, auxiliary problems to decouple the micro- from the macrovariables are derived. The microscopic flow field obtained by the proposed approach is compared to the solution of the two-scale problem. Finite element calculations for an isotropic and an anisotropic pore cell geometries are used to validate the accuracy and speed-up of the proposed approach. The order of accuracy has been studied by performing the simulations up to the third order expansion for the isotropic geometry.

An optimal control problem for a mathematical model of a melt spinning process is considered. Newtonian and non--Newtonian models are used to describe the rheology of the polymeric material, the fiber is made of. The extrusion velocity of the polymer at the spinneret as well as the velocity and temperature of the quench air serve as control variables. A constrained optimization problem is derived and the first--order optimality system is set up to obtain the adjoint equations. Numerical solutions are carried out using a steepest descent algorithm.

We present an optimal control approach for the isothermal film casting process with free surfaces described by averaged Navier-Stokes equations. We control the thickness of the film at the take-up point using the shape of the nozzle. The control goal consists in finding an even thickness profile. To achieve this goal, we minimize an appropriate cost functional. The resulting minimization problem is solved numerically by a steepest descent method. The gradient of the cost functional is approximated using the adjoint variables of the problem with fixed film width. Numerical simulations show the applicability of the proposed method.

The interation of particular slender bodies with low Reynolds-number flows is in the limit 'slenderness to 0' described by a linear Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. The integral operator of this equation has a denumerable set of polynomial eigenfunctions whose corresponding eigenvalues are non-positive and of logarithmic growth. A theorem similiar to a classical result of Plemelj-Privalov for integral operators with Cauchy kernels is proven. In contrast to Cauchy kernel operators, the integral operator maps no Hölder space into itself. A spectral analysis of the integral operator restricted to an appropriate class of analytic functions is performed. The spectral properties of this restricted integral operator suggest a collocation-like method to solve the integral equation numerically. For this numerical scheme, convergence is proven and several computations are presented.